12/31/2016

Anyone paying attention to the Obama Administration over the past eight years has seen the overreach of various government agencies expand to the point of ridiculousness. A perfect example of such overreach is the EPA, a rogue agency that has come to believe it doesn’t need to follow the law, can ignore Federal and Supreme Court rulings with impunity, impose regulations that have not been authorized by Congress, and can ignore science when it is in opposition to the agency’s agenda.

…now comes the federal government to tell the inhabitants of Alaska’s interior that, really, they should not be building fires to keep themselves warm during the winter.

Like most people in Alaska, the residents of those frozen cities are burning wood to keep themselves warm this winter. Smoke from wood-burning stoves increases small-particle pollution, which settles in low-lying areas and can be breathed in. The EPA thinks this is a big problem. Eight years ago, the agency ruled that wide swaths of the most densely populated parts of the region were in “non-attainment” of federal air quality standards.

The problem is, there’s no replacement for wood-burning stoves in Alaska’s interior. Heating oil is too expensive for a lot of people, and natural gas isn’t available. So they’ve got to burn something. The average low temperature in Fairbanks in December is 13 degrees below zero. In January, it’s 17 below. During the coldest days of winter, the high temperature averages -2 degrees, and it can get as cold as -60. This is not a place where you play games with the cold. If you don’t keep the fire lit, you die. For people of modest means, and especially for the poor, that means you burn wood in a stove—and you keep that fire lit around the clock.

Even though it doesn’t get quite that cold here in New Hampshire, or at least not for weeks at end, heating with wood is quite common here. While a number of people here use wood pellet stoves, most of us heating with wood use a woodstove. Yes, there are particulates in wood smoke, particularly when you first fire it up. But once it’s burning and up to temperature the smoke diminishes. I know I rarely see smoke coming from our chimney except right after I’ve added more wood. It heats well, is much less expensive than heating oil or propane. Natural gas isn’t available outside the few cities or larger suburbs. So those of us with limited means or frugal natures (or both) heat with wood. It is abundant. It is carbon neutral, if that’s important to you. It’s renewable. More importantly, it works even if there is no power, something that can happen during a blizzard or ice storm.

Of course the EPA’s fixation on preventing people from heating their homes with wood has even hit here in the lower 48, banning the resale of older but still serviceable woodstoves. If you decide to trade in your old woodstove for a new EPA-approved low emission, catalytic converter equipped, much more expensive woodstove, your old stove will be scrapped rather than resold even though it is still useable, perhaps by someone who cannot afford one of the new stoves but still needs to heat their home.

Then again, since when would an EPA bureaucrat care one whit about someone trying to keep their family warm in the depths of winter? We’ve certainly seen that with the action the EPA has taken in Alaska.

12/26/2016

Now that the hustle and bustle of Christmas has passed (and the hustle and bustle of gift returns and post-Christmas sales starts), I actually have a few minutes to put together this somewhat abbreviated Day-After-Christmas Thoughts On A Sunday.

While I didn’t have to travel, much of the rest of the WP Clan did. At this point it appears everyone got to where they were going and back home again without incident. I hope that is true for you half-dozen or so regular readers of this humble blog.

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While being ensconced on the recliner and watching Fox News this morning, I found it interesting, though not unsurprising claim by the White House press secretary that the Obama Administration has been one of the most open and transparent administrations in American history.

The video clip with that pronouncement had barely concluded when a number of Fox commentators and liberal media pundits blasted the claim, with more than a few stating the Obama Administration had been one of the most closed, opaque, and obstructive administrations ever, with one or two stating the Nixon Administration was transparent in comparison to this one.

This also makes one wonder just how many last minute “Eff You” actions Obama will take prior to Donald Trump’s inauguration next month.

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Influential state-run Chinese tabloid the Global Times said the exercise showed how the carrier was improving its combat capabilities and that it should now sail even further afield.

“The Chinese fleet will cruise to the Eastern Pacific sooner or later. When China’s aircraft carrier fleet appears in offshore areas of the U.S. one day, it will trigger intense thinking about maritime rules,” the newspaper said in an editorial.

I would expect that when that day comes China will find it being shadowed by at least one US carrier group (the US Navy presently has 11 carrier groups), and more than one Los Angeles or Virginia class submarine.

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I believe that is the case, something psychiatrists call projection. Too bad they don’t understand (or don’t care) that most of us just want to be left alone and not bothered by their utopian idea of Nanny State Socialism.

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When a high level college student with a 4.0 average at Kansas State University is dropping out because his belief that college is a scam and that he can learn more by starting his own business than wasting 4 years at college, that’s a danger signal to the institutions of higher learning that they aren’t providing what it is our kids need to make it in the real world.

It doesn’t help that we’ve been sold the lie that the only way we can get ahead is with a college education, and that the Uncle Sam has flooded the country with so much money to finance student loans. Between those two factors is it any wonder the higher education system is breaking down?

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And that’s the abbreviated news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’re recovering from the pre-Christmas shopping fatigue, the snow is falling now and then, and where there are still plenty of Christmas treats to eat.

12/24/2016

In case you’ve noticed, posting has been a little sparse.
Much of it can be attributed to preparations for Christmas. Another part can be
attributed to the end of the year push at work.

Between people trying hard to make it home for Christmas and
the last minute shoppers crowding the stores, as well as inclement weather,
traffic has been heavy, making it difficult to get around.

Earlier this week an incident made it even more difficult to
get around. I wish I could say I was doing some manly task that caused my
injury. But I was merely bending over to put ice cleats on my boots in
preparation for spreading sand and ice melt at the bottom of our driveway.

As I started slipping the cleats on to my right boot, there
was a cracking sound and intense pain in my left knee. I had just ruptured the quadriceps
tendon. One fortunate thing – the pain dropped off to a dull ache after a few
minutes. The bad thing – I will have restricted mobility for the next few
months. That means not being able to clear the snow from our driveway, move
firewood from the garage to the woodbox in the living room, and in general
being relegated to a semi-invalid status. It also means making alternate
arrangements to get things done.

12/18/2016

The latest winter storm made its way through New Hampshire, dropping about 6 inches of snow here at The Manse. Cleaning up was easy, making use of the Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower to move the snow out of the way. The driveway was quite passable after that.

However, the follow-on freezing rain last evening made it very difficult to make it up the driveway and out onto our road. So far I have not been able to get the trusty F150 4X4 more than 20 feet up the drive before losing traction, even with sand applied to the surface. (This is as of 11:10AM this morning.) I expect that with the rising temperatures and rain much if the sheet of ice that is our driveway will thaw to the point where making it up the 23% grade of our driveway will be possible.

Welcome to winter in New England.

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I saw the TV ad where liberal/Progressive/lefty celebrities have demanded the Electors of the Electoral College to not vote for Donald Trump. They cover their asses by saying they don't have to vote for Hillary, but we know that's exactly what they want. After all, why should they care if they create a Constitutional crisis as long as they get their way? Then again, they've never really been fans of the US Constitution...unless it works in their favor.

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Speaking of the Electoral College, there is actually a law professor, in fact the dean of the University of California Irvine Law School, who claims it is unconstitutional.
Really? Even though it is quite clearly spelled out in the Constitution itself, specifically Article II, Section 1 as amended by the Twelfth Amendment?

I must assume that this professor is one of those who believes the Constitution is a living document and needn't go through the amendment process to change it. A judge somewhere can declare parts of the Constitution null and void even though it is the supreme law of the land? Really?

Maybe this dean should be fired because it appears he has no use for our constitution or our laws derived therefrom.

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Will burger-making robots be replacing humans at our local fast food joints should the minimum wage be raised to $15?

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And the hate keeps piling up, in this case, yet another hoax hate crime designed to discredit Trump and the Deplorables who voted for him.

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Are you one of the folks that doesn't quite understand why raising the minimum wage, particularly when you double it, can hurt more people that it helps? Here's a handy video that explains why artificially raising the cost of labor always causes harm.

Who in their right mind would hire an inexperienced teen with no work history when they would have to pay $15 an hour? No one. That effectively locks out millions of teens from getting their first job.

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The New England Patriots beat the Denver Broncos in Denver, clinching a first week bye in the playoffs.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we're dealing with icy roads, the last few days of Christmas shopping, and yet another premature return of Monday.

The bakery's first reward: the employee, Allyn Gibson, being beaten by the shoplifter and two female accomplices.

The bakery's second reward: the SJW's on campus targeted the bakery, claiming it “had a history of discriminating against customers "of color."”

It gets worse. Leading the charge in the latest War on Small-Biz Bakeries is the Oberlin College dean of students, Meredith Raimondo, who joined the baying mob in bullying the Gibson family. She disseminated flyers libelously asserting that Gibson's is a "racist establishment with a long account of racial profiling and discrimination." Convicted in the crazy Oberlin College court of public opinion, the school refused to renew its longstanding daily order of donuts and bagels. For a small business with razor-thin margins, losing that order could be devastating.

Never mind that the "racism" charge is a brazen lie. As the police department pointed out, since 2011, there had been four robberies at the store including Aladin's, "and he was the only black person. There were 40 adults arrested for shoplifting in five years, and 32 were white. There were six adult black suspects arrested and two Asians, and 33 of the 40 were college students."

And never mind that Trey James, a Gibson's employee who is himself black, bluntly told the student newspaper that race had nothing to do with the incident. "If you're caught shoplifting, you're going to end up getting arrested," he told the Oberlin Review. "When you steal from the store, it doesn't matter what color you are. You can be purple, blue, green -- if you steal, you get caught, you get arrested."

There's also the fact that the shoplifter, Jonathan Aladin, was underage in regards to possession of alcohol. That he felt it was perfectly okay to steal the alcohol he wasn't able to buy or consume legally had nothing to do with it, right? There's also the fact that 82.5% of all of the shoplifters arrested for stealing from the bakery were students at Oberlin should mean that the rest of the SJW's at Oberlin should be keeping their yaps shut.

The SJW's should be called on the carpet for the false narratives they constant employ as justification for the their thuggish behavior, and dare I say, Mob-like activities. Maybe a few RICO prosecutions might get them to pay attention. Then again, maybe not. I believe that far too many of them are of the small-brain big-mouth variety of Progressive drones. I don't believe they're capable of learning anything but faux outrage.

12/14/2016

As we approach Christmas we come across Grinch who is working hard to steal Christmas toys from the kids of Venezuela.

In this case the government of Arturo Maduro, bus driver extraordinaire, decided to seize over 4 million toys from a toy distributor because the government “fair” pricing authority believed the owners were “promoting price speculation”. The government will hand out the seized toys to poor children in Venezuela. Of course these days almost every child in Venezuela is poor. The Chavistas made them poor.

While kids will get toys this Christmas, it is unlikely there will be any toys to be had next year. Why should anyone want to import toys knowing it is highly likely they will be stolen by the government...again. I can guarantee that the toy distributor, Kreisel, won't be bringing in any toys as it is quite possible they won't be in business much longer, at least not in Venezuela.

If that happens, I expect Maduro will blame the “greedy capitalists” for not ordering more toys to be stolen by the government. It won't matter to them that they drove the company out of business.

The more I read and hear about the government actions taking place in Venezuela, the more it proves that the people in power have absolutely no idea who economies work and figure they can just order factories to produce goods when they have no money to by raw materials, have no electricity to run the factories, or farmers to grow and harvest crops when there are no seeds, fertilizer, or pesticides to be had, particularly at the prices the government has set. Farmers can't sell their crops for what it cost them to grow and harvest them. Yet the government wonders why things keep getting worse.

12/11/2016

The first blast of frigid winter air made its appearance, with night time lows in the single digits here at The Manse. We are also gearing up for 4 to 8 inches of snow overnight.

I made a couple of stops at two of the local Big Box scores to pick up during my usual weekend shopping (Walmart and Lowe's) and I noticed that most folks were buying things like shovels, salt, and windshield scrapers/brushes. While there were quite a few folks also doing their Christmas shopping at Walmart, more than a few of them also had the aforementioned winter implements in their shopping carts as well.

I can only hope that people up here won't “go stupid” in their efforts to make it into work tomorrow morning. It always seems to take a couple or three snowstorms before winter driving skills are reasserted in some folks.

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I admit that I made a few small preparations for the coming snow, but most of them were along the lines of pulling snow shovels down from the rafters in the garage, filling a few sand buckets at our town's sand shed, moving the Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower from its storage location in the back of the garage and making sure it was in working order.

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Of course I expect someone at some point will be pointing the finger at Trump as the cause of this problem. But as the old saying goes, “When you point your finger at someone, three fingers are pointing back at you.”

The only ones to blame for this problem are the parents, the teachers, and the PC wackos who worked so hard to make sure the the Millennials were psychologically incapable of becoming grown ups. Now that the bill has come due for this abuse none of the parties mentioned want to pay it. How many of that generation will we lose because the only thing they are capable of is being whiny spoiled brats incapable of dealing with the word “NO”?

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It appears that yet another experiment in Marxism has failed. In this case, a vegan restaurant in Grand Rapids, Michigan using a Marxist business plan closed its doors because, quite frankly, it was awful. It had, as one critic on Reddit wrote, "Good riddance. The concept was terrible. Hours lousy. Service unacceptable.”

Call it a nostalgic look back on the bad old days of the Soviet Union. It sounds like the restaurant operated just like those in various cities across the now-defunct USSR.

Will they learn from this experience?

I'd say probably not.

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Do you think the economy has fully recovered from the Great Recession?

Me neither.

I see too many signs that things aren't what they used to be pre-recession. The U6 unemployment rate is still way too high and is too far away from the U3 rate. Many jobs are going unfilled even though a lot of people are still out of work. The labor participation rate is still falling. Large amounts of government spending keeps growing the national debt to unheard of levels. Over-regulation and rogue federal agencies are strangling small businesses.

For years, Americans were told that after the financial panic in 2008, the president’s policies had put us on a steady course to a strong economy. But in much of the country, people looked around them and thought, That just doesn’t seem right. Especially in those parts of the country hit the hardest by the transition from the Industrial Era to the Information Age, people asked a number of questions. If the economy is doing so great, why are my adult children not moving out? If the unemployment rate is declining, why are so many prime-age males not working? And doesn’t it matter that the quality of jobs for non-college graduates is so obviously worse than it was a generation ago? Why, instead of working, are so many people dependent on public benefits and falling prey to addiction?

If the economy was doing so well, then none of the problems cited above would be much of an issue. In fact most of them wouldn't even exist except in small pockets here and there. But the problems are widespread and the Obama Administration won't take the responsibility for any o fthem.

Is it any wonder so many people who otherwise might not have voted Republican did so for Donald Trump? They knew that 4 more years of Obamanomics would likely kill any hope of true economic recovery.

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I had a discussion about carbon emissions with one of my co-workers, a true believer in the Kyoto Protocols and the Paris Accord. He thought we should have signed on to Kyoto and should adhere to the Paris Accords.

I had to burst his bubble.

After informing him that the US had reduced its carbon footprint to a level not seen since 1991, all while expanding its economy, he didn't want to believe it. He also didn't/couldn't believe that the US did better at reducing carbon emissions than every signatory of Kyoto. Every. Single. One. I even pointed him to the various reports from government sources that showed what I had told him to be accurate.

I thought his head was going to explode.

Even though he holds a Masters Degree in Computer Science, he has little experience in the real world. The level of wisdom he displays is less than I would expect for someone with his background or his age.

My biggest gripe about the Progressive movement is that it has nothing to do with actual progress. In fact, it is more regressive, trying to push us back to more oppressive and authoritarian days. Much of it appears based upon stirring up emotion, pushing false narratives, constructing straw man arguments, and appealing to the lowest common denominator. Its economics is based upon some poorly defined sense of 'fairness' which usually means taking away someone's hard earned money and giving it away to cronies or supporters of the Progressive cause. More often than not it destroys charities and tries to replace them with government programs that are supposed to provide the same services as the charities they've replaced, but usually fails to actually do so.

Somehow that's all considered progress. But progress towards what, exactly?

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we're awaiting the arrival of more snow, Christmas shopping is still moving at a bustling pace, and where happiness is a hot woodstove and full wood box.

12/10/2016

One of the biggest gripes I've been hearing about the election results is that even though Hillary won the popular vote, she lost due to Trump receiving more than the 270 votes in the electoral college needed to become president. I've heard more than a few of our more historically challenged and willfully ignorant youth protest, saying the presidential vote should be based solely on the popular vote. They either don't understand why that would be a bad idea, or they don't care. In my opinion it's most likely both.

Like the two chambers of Congress, the electoral college was set up to prevent large states from entirely dominating the political landscape in the US. I don't know of anyone who would want California deciding who will be our president or setting policy in our country. But that would be the likely outcome if we changed both the electoral college and/or Congress so that counterbalance against the tyranny of the majority were removed.

Our entire nation would look just like California if that were the case – punitive and confiscatory taxes, over-regulation of businesses to the point where can not survive, draconian environmental regulations, bankrupt cities/counties/towns because of of insane fiscal policies, and union domination of the civil service system which would be why the cities/counties/towns were bankrupt. Electricity would be in short supply and very expensive. So would water. Farms would lie fallow and the city elite would rule even those of us in rural areas. We would be living The Hunger Games if the historically challenged and willfully ignorant youth had their way.

However, I doubt it could be changed either quickly or easily considering it would take an amendment to the US Constitution. I doubt you'd find the requisite 35 states to ratify such a destructive and ultimately stupid idea. The rural states would fight like hell to keep such a stupid idea from becoming reality. It could even lead to civil war, should the non-blue states decide they won't have our self-anointed 'betters' deciding how we were going to live even though they know absolutely nothing about us. As Dana Loesch has written, “You can't run a country you've never been to.”

As it is we already see the effects of that in California as the coastal elite make decisions for everyone else, in most cases hurting those who do not live along the coastal corridor of power. They do not see, nor do they care to see the actual effects of their poorly thought out and politically expedient laws, rules, and regulations. They don't have to look the people they have hurt in the eye tell them that “it's for their own good” when their jobs have just been legislated or regulated out of existence. They don't want to know the “little people” because, after all, we don't count.

That's just one small example of why we shouldn't abolish the electoral college.

12/04/2016

This weekend is the last we'll see of some of the better weather for a while. We have colder temps, higher winds, and the possibility of some snowfall over the next four or five days.

In other words, winter weather is arriving.

While not all of our winter prep is done, most of it is. The few things that still need doing aren't critical, but they'll still get done over the next couple of days.

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I still find it interesting that, after all this time, it surprises me when I meet people whose scribblings I have read, either on blogs or in the local paper's letters to the editor. More often that not they are quite different in person and when discussing things with them face to face. I think it's the pseudo-anonymity that drives quite a bit of it.

My next-door neighbor, a transplant from the People's Republic of Massachusetts, sounds like a card carrying member of the Communist Party of the United States in his letters to the local paper. But when I have the opportunity to talk with him face to face, his positions seem much more moderate and far less emotional.

About the only person I have found to be exactly the way they have portrayed themselves on line or in the papers is a radical Leftist academic teaching in one of our local state universities. Even my neighbor thinks this guy is so far out there that he's lost somewhere in interstellar space.

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We've finished the last of our Christmas decorating, putting up the window 'candles' as a finishing touch. Our tree has been up and decorated since Friday evening as well as some of the other 'garnishes' to give The Manse a more festive look. We've never really been into outside decoration, preferring to keep what decorations that can be seen from the outside more low key.

However, BeezleBub and Red Head Girl have decorated the exterior of the barn where there apartment is located, mostly with white lights. Deb and I contributed a little splash of color with a green and red lighted Christmas wreath to hang near the peak of the barn roof just to provide a little contrast with the rest of the decorations.

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The New England Patriots played the LA Rams in Foxborough this afternoon, beating them 26-10. This was quarterback Tom Brady's 201st win, making him the winningest NFL quarterback ever.

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We already know many liberals and the LSM have a very low opinion of a good portion of the American people. But it takes testicular fortitude to actually say so on national TV.

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They really have a low opinion of the capabilities of black voters. Can it be the “soft racism of low expectations” that so many of the American Left practice?

Of course it is.

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This is something I've known for a long time, have written about a number of times, and know to still be true. What is it I'm talking about?

The bogus unemployment numbers being touted by the feds.

The 'official' unemployment numbers come from what is called the U3 rate. The actual unemployment rate should be taken from the U6 rate, which encompasses not just those who are out of work and collecting unemployment, but those whose benefits have expired, those who have given up looking for work in their fields, and the underemployed who are working in jobs far below their previous level of employment.

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Of course Trump should thank the MSM for all of the free press he received during the campaign season. After all, it meant he spent only a fraction of what Hillary spent on her campaign. Then again, Trump is a master at manipulating the media and he played 'em like a fiddle.

Trust in the media is at an all time low. And why not? The media ceased being a source of information and became a propaganda wing of the Left decades ago. However, these days they don't even pretend to be unbiased anymore. That, and we already know just how much disdain they have for most Americans. Maybe that's why we have such disdain for them.

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Like him, I haven't a clue. They seem to be that always mysterious and invisible “They” that everyone is always talking about. Could they be, as David wonders, “just 50 Internet trolls?”

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter is going to make itself known for the next few days, woodstoves will be running 24/7, and where a whole lot of people will be wishing they had their snow tires on their cars and SUVs.

12/03/2016

With the on and off stories about protests about various pipelines, the latest being the Dakota Access Pipeline, one has to wonder just how many pipelines there really are. The handy-dandy map below certainly brings the matter into perspective:

One of the proposed pipelines that made quite a bit of news here in New Hampshire was the Kinder Morgan pipeline that would have brought large amounts of natural gas into New England. Looking at the map above it looks like there are few serving New England. That certainly explains why natural gas prices always skyrocket during the winter around here as most of it comes into the area on huge LNG tankers...from Yemen. Yet the very same people who complain about the spikes in natural gas prices (along with the same for electric rates as a lot of power plants in the Northeast run on natural gas) have worked hard to prevent any new pipelines from being built that will carry natural gas from Pennsylvania into this area.

12/02/2016

Prior to the election, the Left and their minions have pushed for a $15 minimum wage, selling it as a means of “lifting the working poor out of poverty.” Since very few of the working poor were making minimum wage, it was a specious argument. Of the 2.4 million people in the US making minimum wage, most of them are between 17 and 24 years of age, meaning that most of them are likely in entry level jobs. But that hasn't stopped the Left from pursuing a nationwide minimum wage of $15 ignoring the major downside to such a large increase – increased unemployment. They honestly don't believe it will actually be a problem. However there are many examples showing how the artificial doubling of the minimum wage is already having an negative effect in cities and states that have already raised their minimum wage to well above the federal minimum wage. One of the biggest examples of the downside to this outrageous hike in the minimum wage – McDonald's is replacing some of their staff with self-serve ordering kiosks, nationwide.

Let’s start with automation. In 2013, when the Fight for $15 was still in its growth stage, I and others warned that union demands for a much higher minimum wage would force businesses with small profit margins to replace full-service employees with costly investments in self-service alternatives. At the time, labor groups accused business owners of crying wolf. It turns out the wolf was real.

Earlier this month, McDonald’s announced the nationwide roll-out of touchscreen self-service kiosks. In a video the company released to showcase the new customer experience, it’s striking to see employees who once would have managed a cash register now reduced to monitoring a customer’s choices at an iPad-style kiosk.

But wait, it gets worse!

It’s not just McDonald’s that has embraced job-replacing technology. Numerous restaurant chains (both quick service and full service) have looked to computer tablets as a solution for rising labor costs that won't adversely impact the customer’s experience. Eatsa, a fully-automated restaurant concept, now has five locations—all in cities or states that have embraced a $15 minimum wage. And in a scene stolen from The Jetsons, the Starship delivery robot is now navigating the streets of San Francisco with groceries and other consumer goods. The company’s founder pointed to a rising minimum wage as a key factor driving the growth of his automated delivery business.

Some businesses have been driven out of business or been forced to relocate due to the new minimum wage driving their labor costs upwards, in some cases more than doubling. This has meant many of the low margin businesses have either cut staff hours, cut staff numbers, closed their doors, or moved. Raising prices to cover the much higher labor costs were a non-starter because now their goods or services are too expensive for some of their customers.

To see just how many businesses have already been affected, the website The Faces Of 15 lists a number of businesses in a number fo cities and states that have been adversely affected by these higher minimum wages. Some might surprise you.

While a $15 minimum wage will make those on the Left feel better about themselves because the believe they have 'helped' those less fortunate than themselves, the reality is that millions of gainfully employed people will lose their jobs because of this supposed 'help'. Of course the Left won't see that it was their actions that actually caused the problem to begin with.

11/27/2016

Despite Black Friday. It's actually been somewhat quiet here in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. There were a few places around here that saw the shopping frenzy, one of those being one of the local outlet malls, but for the most part it hasn't gotten too crazy.

I think the after-effects of all that Thanksgiving fare are still making themselves known.

Hmm, blowing off about half of your customer base because you disagree with their political choices doesn't bode well for any broadbased business. As such, I would think that the shareholders of that company, assuming it is a not owned by the CEO, would do the prudent thing and fire him before he can do any more damage.

In an interview this week with KOB, a local NBC News affiliate, Mr. Blanchfield said he had a “moral obligation” to stand up for what he believes is right.

“It is my firm belief that we elected a fascist as our next president,” he said.

As long as he's prepared to suffer the consequences of his actions, so be it. However his investors might not be so sanguine about his actions.

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Even Forbes magazine is hopping on to the EMdrive bandwagon, particularly in light of tests run by NASA at their Eagleworks lab facility showing the new technology works as advertised.

The problem? The EMdrive violates Newton's Third Law of Motion which states “For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction.”

That third law is known as the conservation of momentum, and is true not only in Newtonian mechanics, but in electromagnetism, General Relativity and all of quantum field theory. It’s the one law that Newton came up with that still holds, with no exceptions, today.

But if the EMdrive is truly reactionless, then Newton is wrong. Also, Einstein is wrong, Maxwell is wrong and all of quantum physics is wrong. There’s a fundamental symmetry that causes momentum conservation: translational symmetry. It means that if my system is over here, at a certain point in space, it should obey the same laws as if it’s over there, at a different point in space. But if momentum conservation isn’t truly fundamental, then translational symmetry cannot be a good symmetry of the Universe. In other words, there must be a preferred location, where the laws of physics are different in one location than others. The laws of physics, all of a sudden, depend on position.

Umm....oops? This could certainly upset the physics apple cart unless someone can explain how it works and does not violate Newton's Third Law.

If nothing else the EMdrive is pushing pure scientific research in an area of science so many of us have found fascinating throughout our lives.

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Reading the comments to the linked post I believe that some of the commenters have confused “high computer-related abilities” with the ability to code and learn new programming languages. But from what I've been able to glom from the original article (linked elsewhere in the original post), it is the ability to use sophisticated applications to their fullest extent that comprise the 5%. Of that 5%, maybe 10 to 15% of those actually code. The third of users that can “complete medium-complexity tasks” I take to mean being able to use things like the various Office suites (Microsoft Office, Open Office, Libre, etc) to do more than some basic word processing, presentation creation, or spreadsheet functions.

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The New England Patriots played the New York Jets at the Meadowlands today, beating the Jets 22-17. That makes the Pats 9-2 for the season so far.

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Will the cognitive dissonance that is part and parcel of the Left's world view be shattered as Donald Trump fails to live up to their opinion of him? Will they swoon if, as some of us expect, he will end up being pragmatic in regards to the Presidency and actually does a decent job assembling his cabinet, creating and enacting his policies, foreign and domestic?

Or will their cast-in-stone beliefs not allow them to see what is actually happening, much as they could not see that The Won was not the answer to their prayers, but instead a divider that has helped destroy their narrative?

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we've survived another Thanksgiving and the follow on Black Friday, leftovers are on the menu for the next few days, and where all of the parking lots at the various malls and outlets will be jammed until Christmas.

11/26/2016

Despite some people here in the US paying homage to the brutal dictator that caused endless misery for the Cuban people, the celebrations in Miami for his passing show us the true measure of the man.

As bad as the Batista regime was in Cuba, communist rule was far worse. It's time that the apologists for all things communist come to realize that.

I figure that will happen at the same time those wearing the Che Guevara tee-shirts stop wearing them when the realize that Che was a brutal murderer and rapist, covering himself under the revolutionary mantle as an excuse to be a monster.

11/25/2016

With electors still being threatened by the self-anointed 'elite' PC police – people who didn't even bother to vote – one has to wonder if they've given any thought to just what a reaction there would be if some of the electors gave in to those threats? Would there be law suits? Would there be riots? Or worse, would there be a civil war between the Americans who firmly believe in the Constitution and those who see it as nothing more than a historical curiosity that stands in the way of yet another hellish socialist utopia?

Of the options I think that the first and then the third options are most likely. When the rule of law breaks down, so does the society. Once that happens, war is inevitable. And given the proclivities of the two groups, I think the second group is likely to lose because the first has all of the guns and the will to use them to preserve the rights paid for with the blood and treasure of those who have gone before us.

That the Progressive youth think we should abandon the electoral college shows us just how ignorant and close-minded they are. With no understanding of our history or the reasons why the the Framers of the Constitution codified the electoral college, they tread down a dangerous path that can lead to far more strife, death and destruction than they can possibly imagine They believe in tyranny of the majority. (Don't let their protest to the contrary fool you as it has fooled them.) They want to see their version of the Reign of Terror, though I doubt we'll see the random mob-driven killings as seen in France. But they will use the power of the popular vote to strip away one right after another from the minority “for the good of the people.” It's something that's right out of Atlas Shrugged, something they have shown more than once they are willing to embrace.

All of this has to make me wonder if they have truly stopped thinking for themselves, (this assumes they ever had that capability) and are capable of merely parroting what they have been spoon fed by their indoctrination coordinators – once known as teachers and professors. Has critical thinking been replaced by what makes them feel better about themselves? From what I've been seeing from the group of spoiled brats who call themselves Progressives, the answer is yes.

They really don't give a rat's ass about who they'll be hurting as long as they feel better about themselves. They'll continue feeling that way right up to the point that the Deplorables figure they've had enough and start showing them the error of their ways in the most forceful and unpleasant way ever – civil war. It might not be a shooting war, but it will pit “brother against brother” and our country will be all the weaker for it. The differences will be all that matter and the similarities, those things we share in common, will be ignored. But then that's what they've been striving for all along, isn't it? After all, they need someone to look down upon as inferior to them – meaning we Deplorables – so they can feel better about themselves and what they've done all in the name or 'progress'.

OK, enough of my rant. I admit it is a little disjointed, but that happens when I find myself becoming distracted by the actions of willfully ignorant children who do not have anyone else's best interests at heart.

11/23/2016

I find it interesting that SJW's find ways of explaining away all of the offensive things they do all in the name of “social justice” without once thinking about the hypocrisy of their words and actions. They truly do not understand that the very things they protest against are the very things they are doing, though usually covered up in deceptive language (think 1984 and Newspeak).

What's truly scary is watching one of their spokesthings trying to justify its actions on its college campus. (I refuse to dignify the creature appearing on the linked video as a spokesman because, quite frankly, it appears to be nothing more than a programmed robot set to parrot the talking points of the SJW 'movement'. Or maybe it is one of a multitude of possible gender combinations that absolutely nobody understands or can define, hence “spokesthing”. That's about as gender neutral as I can get.)

Watch Tucker Carlson demolish the SJW in regards to Hampshire College in western Massachusetts taking down all of the American flags across campus because it represents “misogynistic, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and behaviors.” It's obvious to me that the college's president who uttered those words has never been outside the US and visited the multitude of cultures/countries (like those in the Middle East and parts of Africa) that are all of those thins (except Islamophobic) in spades.

11/20/2016

The fickleness of fall weather is displaying itself, with temps here in central New Hampshire having been around the 60°F mark yesterday and seeing temperatures plummet towards the freezing mark today as a cold front swept through. The front was accompanied by rain (and snow in some of the higher elevations).

We have been hoping for more rain before the ground freezes as we are still in the midst of a drought. At least the rain we've received to this point hasn't fallen on frozen ground, but that will change over the next week or so.

Deb and I had attended a Bette Midler concert back when Dubya was in office and we were treated to a diatribe against Bush by Ms. Midler, something that ruined our enjoyment of her show. We ended up leaving part way through, though we should have gotten up immediately and demanded our money back as we had paid to attend a concert, not a political rally.

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Be polite. Be professional. But have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

Yup. I'd say that just about sums it up in regards to our defense.

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The purely politically correct actions taken by a number of state Attorney Generals as a means of forcing ExxonMobil to pony up billions of dollars in cash for supposedly suppressing 'knowledge' it knew AGW was real and it's lobbying efforts against the AGW alarmists has had an unexpected turn.

The warmist lobby is learning the hard way that actions have consequences, particularly politically motivated legal actions.

It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.

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As an aside, our family has decided to celebrate Thansgiving a little early seeing that we will all be in different places on Thanksgiving Day. Deb will be working that day at the Veterans Home. BeezleBub will be in rural New York celebrating Thanksgiving with his aunt, uncle, and two of his cousins. I and the WP Mom will be at the younger WP Sister's home south of Boston, hence the 'little' Thanksgiving gathering today with Deb, BeezleBub, and the WP Mom.

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Speaking of Thanksgiving, BeezleBub spent yesterday and today slaughtering turkeys at the farm. BeezleBub, Farmer Andy and his missus, as well as two of the other farmhands spent all day yesterday and today attending to the task. Deb and I stopped by today, bringing coffee and cinnamon rolls to feed the troops as they continued with their tasks. Deb even took a few pictures for her sister showing the process. Deb has no plans to post any of those pics on Facebook, knowing the type of backlash and crap she'll get from the food-comes-from-the-supermarket crowd.

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With the cooler weather we're going to see over the next few days, something we must keep track of is that Solar Cycle 24 is turning out to be the weakest seen in 200 years.

What does that mean?

It may be auguring a period of global cooling as previous quiet solar cycles have. Both the Maunder and Dalton Minimums tracked the Little Ice Age, a period between the late 1300's and the late 1700's/early 1800's. If cycle 24 is a precursor for a series of quiet solar cycles, we might start seeing colder temperatures worldwide. In the Northern Hemisphere that means much colder and longer winters.

If nothing else it might show the warmists that a warmer world is a lot better than a colder one.

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The New England Patriots played the San Francisco 49ers today in San Francisco, beating them 30-17.

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The hew and cry from the Left about Steve Bannon taking on a position with the Trump Administration has to make one wonder if the Left has lost their friggin' minds.

I don't know about you, but I would take any claim or accusation made during a messy divorce with a huge grain of salt considering how many accusations are flung far and wide during such proceedings. That there are no other examples or proof of his supposed antisemitism is a pretty good indicator that none exists. It is merely a faux meme trying to become 'true' in order to discredit someone who the Left detests with a passion that goes beyond all reason.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where early evening snow has fallen, the people are glad the Patriots have won, and where everyone is getting ready for Thanksgiving.

11/13/2016

Welcome to the Post-Election Hangover Edition of Thoughts On A Sunday.

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One sign that the political silly season has finally ended: most of the campaign signs have disappeared from the lawns and roadsides. They should all be gone by Wednesday, or at least that's what state law says. However I have no doubt more than a few from losing candidates will remain for some time, probably to be picked up by town or state road crews.

Now the only things we have to concern ourselves about over the next few months is Thanksgiving, Christmas, and town meeting.

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Speaking of silly, it appears that many of those protesting against Trump came from Rent-a-Mob.

I have to wonder how many of those non-paid protesters against Trump actually bothered to vote last Tuesday? From one obscure report I viewed (lost the darned link), it appears quite a few of those not liking the outcome and blasting social media with the #NotMyPresdient hash-tag didn't even bother to vote. Maybe they figured it was in the bag for Hillary, so they didn't need to actually vote. If that is indeed the case, then they're protesting under false colors. If they want to be ethical about the whole thing, they shouldn't be protesting at all. They gave up that right when they decided not to exercise their constitutional franchise.

As I have told a number of my fellow townsfolk when they complain about one thing or another that was voted in or out at town meeting, if they didn't vote they have no right to protest the outcome.

Too many of my progressive friends seem to have forgotten how to make actual arguments, and have become expert instead at condemnation, derision and mockery. On issue after issue, they’re very good at explaining why no one could oppose their policy positions except for the basest of motives. As to those positions themselves, they are too often announced with a zealous solemnity suggesting that their views are Holy Writ — and those who disagree are cast into the outer political darkness. In short, the left has lately been dripping with hubris, which in classic literature always portends a fall.

Indeed.

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One thing the results of this election have shed light on is the awful parenting skills of the Left. All one has to do is read these tweets.

I feel sorry for these kids because they likely to be unable to survive in the real world because they've been infected with their parents' neuroses.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we're happy the political silly season is over for now, not worry about being deluged by political ads, and where we can actually look forward to Monday.

11/12/2016

The responses from the American people to Donald Trump's election seems to be pretty wide.
Between the over-the-top rioting by the trophy-for-just-showing-up crowd because they never learned about losing (almost all of whom supported Big Nanny Hillary who promised them Free Shit), their only response to seeing their chosen lose the election is to burn and otherwise damage other people's property and beating Trump supporters, the not yet fulfilled promise by numerous celebrities to leave the US (Canada doesn't want them), and the positive reactions from the stock market and the Deplorables' reaction to the list of those who may become part of Trump's cabinet, I think we can see just who are the mature responsible adults .

There has been both good and bad reactions to Trump choosing an AGW skeptic to lead the EPA transition team. That's not a surprise considering the so-called leaders of the EPA under Obama have been deep in the pockets of the climate alarmists and have studiously ignored any data that weakens their beliefs that man is the sole cause of climate change, as well as ignoring court decisions and court orders. It is a rogue agency that has gone far beyond its charter and needs to be reined in.

Trump is also supporting nationwide concealed carry, which means if you have a permit to carry a concealed weapon in your home state it authorizes you to carry concealed in all states, much as driver licenses are recognized nationwide now.

Another thing Trump's election has inadvertently revealed to the world is that social media is not reflective of real life. This is something I've been aware of since social media came into existence. As the old saying goes, “On the Internet no one knows you're a dog.” It can also be said that a relatively small group of people can make it seem that 'everyone' is for or against some issue that has come to the attention of the people, at least for a short while. But once reality sets in, most folks realize the social media frenzy isn't real. It would explain why more people are dropping Twitter and feeling better about life in general once they've done so.

The few things mentioned above are just the few I could think of off the top of my head. I'm sure there will be plenty more as time passes.

11/11/2016

Hearing and reading about the over-the-top outbursts by our Progressive youth (rioting, defecating in the streets, and general assholery) and the overly emotional and, dare I say, insane responses by our self-appointed 'betters', I figured this response posted by my dear brother on Facebook should set all of these emotionally immature and overly dramatic anti-Trump persons straight. Not that it will. After all, they are fragile snowflakes with absolutely no sense of history and a complete lack of understanding about how our government works or of the US Constitution and how it is supposed to limit government.

Experiencing all the wailing and rending of shirts on assorted social media sites is already becoming tiresome and extremely disappointing. Tiresome is obvious, but disappointing needs some explanation.
I am disappointed that so many people I consider to be level-headed and intelligent seem to have lost even the most basic understanding of how our government works.

Everybody needs to take a deep breath and calm down.
Trump is not a monster. Embarrassingly lacking in verbal self-control and possessed of some pretty deplorable character flaws, yes. Monster, no.

Trump does not have a free hand. The GOP members of the House and Senate are not beholden to him in any way and many if not most actively dislike him. Furthermore, despite all the mudslinging that has run rampant in the House and Senate races, most of the GOP in congress are not interested in rolling back the cultural changes of the past twenty years if for no other reason than that they know they CAN’T. When or if Trump sends something outlandish to Congress it is going to die a quick and silent death.

The majorities the GOP holds are not veto-proof. ANYTHING coming out of Congress that may draw a Trump veto will require Republicans and Democrats to work very closely together to overturn the veto. This is a GOOD thing. Hell, it may be the BEST thing to come out of this election cycle.
Trump will not be able to stuff the Supreme Court with crazy people. The Senate has to approve nominees- just hope the GOP doesn’t take a page from the Democratic Handbook and deploy the nuclear option with regards to filibusters. I suspect they will not do so to benefit President Trump.
Yes, it is unlikely the SCOTUS nominees will be progressive, “living constitution” types. Elections have consequences. Still, it is extremely unlikely the court is going to overturn decisions such as recognition of gay marriages and the like. Justices, particularly more conservative Justices, tend to take Stare Decisis seriously. Beyond that, somebody would need to bring a case to the Supreme Court- they don’t get to simply hand down a ruling because they feel like it.

Finally, this is TEMPORARY. As a good friend of mine likes to say, the President is just the current temporary occupant of the White House. There is another election in two years where every member of the house and a whole slew of Senators are up for re-election. Two years after that there is a Presidential election. Four years may seem like an eternity, but it is not even close to “President for Life…”

Despair is unbecoming. Knock it off.

Did any of you see the unrest that took place after Obama was elected, with rednecks rioting and burning cars, smashing windows, defecating on a picture of Obama, or beating up Obama supporters?

Of course you didn't...because it never happened.

We Obama opponents winced at the loss of our candidates, saw there was little we could do other than work through the legislative process, and got on with our lives. Yes, we may have grumbled and groaned about what “that ass-hat in Washington” was doing next, but we didn't take to the streets like the thugs we've seen over the past couple of days. We didn't destroy the property of the very people we were supposedly 'supporting'. In other words, we didn't act like the hypocrites on the Left have been acting.

11/09/2016

I spent all day yesterday at the polls, fulfilling my duty as a town official to help oversee the election process. Except for a brief period (about 45 minutes) I was there from 15 minutes before the polls opened until almost two-and-a-half hours after the polls closed, making for a 14 hour day.

I won’t go into the nitty-gritty details about the process itself as there’s been more than a few people in the media and the blogosphere who have covered that topic again and again. No need for me to repeat it. Instead, I want to delve into my observations about the various people who came into the polls to exercise their constitutional franchise to elect those who would be running our county, our state, and our nation. (Elections for town officials doesn’t take place until March during Town Meeting.)

From the moment the polls opened at 7AM sharp there was a large crowd of people waiting to vote. In the first couple of hours we easily had 1000 voters come through our doors. That’s about one-sixth of the total registered voters in our town. By noon, we’d reached almost half. (I am including in that total the absentee ballots our town clerk had received.) Even without the absentee ballots included, we were on the path to hit 90%. But elections being what they were, we didn’t maintain that pace.

Once we reached noon, the pace had slackened and remained low in relation to what we’d seen earlier that morning. There was a steady stream of voters which kept everyone occupied, but it wasn’t like the crush we’d been dealing with. That all changed by 4PM when the next batch of voters arrived, those being the folks who were stopping to vote after getting out of work. It built pretty quickly until we were processing ballots as fast as our two ballot machines could handle them. There was a constant line of voters waiting to deposit their ballots into the counting machines.

At 6PM it was like someone had suddenly shut off the faucet. The lines disappeared and the flood became a trickle. Frankly, I was expecting it to remain busy right until the polls closed at 7PM. If it had, we might have hit that magical 90% number. Alas, it was not to be.

When all of the ballots were counted, checked, and write-ins and military absentee ballots tallied, over 78% of our voters turned out to cast their votes during the election. That’s pretty darned good, just not where we had hoped it would be.

One of the things I noticed missing about this election that I’d seen at previous elections: there was little exuberance or excitement being displayed. Instead, it was more of an atmosphere of grim determination to get in, vote, and get out. Most seemed to exhibit relief once they saw their ballots deposited in the ballot boxes.

More than a few expressed disdain for the major candidates- Clinton and Trump – saying it wasn’t that they were voting for a candidate as much as they were voting against a candidate. So many of my fellow townspeople were relieved that it was all over and that we wouldn’t have to be bombarded with TV and radio ads, the tons of campaign mailers that were stuffing our mailboxes, or the incessant phone calls from pollsters who wanted “just a few minutes of your time”.

More than a few voters took the opportunity to skillfully express their dislike of the candidates, with one clever fellow standing in line with a nose clip on his nose to “kill the stench” as he voted. More than a few people standing in line with him asked if they could borrow it when he was done with it.

One voter asked me if it was required that they fill out their ballot completely or if they could leave some of the ballot blank because they didn’t like anyone running for some of the other offices or whether the ballot counting machines would kick her ballot out because it wasn’t complete. After assuring her she could safely leave as many blanks as she wanted, she deposited her ballot in the box and fled.

I mention this because of something I noticed when we were checking ballots to determine f the counting machines mistakenly sorted ballots with write-ins into the wrong bin. (This is done to make sure that everyone’s ballot is counted, particularly the write-in votes.) More than few of the ballots I checked showed that voter didn’t cast votes for a considerable number of offices. I didn’t take the time to see specifically which ones were blank, but it appeared more than a few folks only voted for president and vice president, others just for governor or US senator. Others appeared to leave those offices blank and voted for their representatives in the New Hampshire House, Senate, and Executive Council.

I don’t know how common this is, whether it has been done in other elections, but it seemed there were a lot of ballots like those and I checked only a few hundred of them (out of 4800 ballots cast).

Having seen that, it reinforces the idea that I might be on the right track in calling for “None OF The Above” to be a valid choice during an election. We saw a few of those during the counting of the write-in ballots.

All in all, it was an interesting day at the polls. Now we all get to live with the consequences of our choices.